Paternity?
by bray4amber
Summary: Because I couldn't resist after an awesome episode. Set 8 weeks post Blink, Lexie sees those two pink lines and the title really says the rest... Now with spoilers for I like you better naked
1. Chapter 1

**Set after Blink, I'm sure somebody will do this story better than thi but it has been torturing me! I love Mark and Lexie together but I think their relationship has gone a little too smoothly for a grey's plotline and some angst is needed. **

Blink: 8 weeks later....

'I know it's soon Alex, but I'd like to try for a baby' Izzie rolled over in bed.

'Uh, wow...' Alex didn't really know how to reply.

'I'm not getting any younger Alex, and I keep thinking about all those eggs I froze before chemo. They have a shelf life.'

Izzie turned again and faced Alex who was now wide awake. They had only been back together for a couple of weeks and already Iz wanted to move on. He wanted her happy, he really did, he just wasn't sure he was ready for the speed with which their relationship was progressing. They had gotten married because she was dying and if Alex was honest he didn't know if he would have proposed otherwise. He was in love with her, he knew that and he probably would have married Iz eventually, but they had gone from dating into the Church at a speed the starship enterprise would have been proud of. The fact that he hadn't managed to stay faithful to her while she was away was just reinforcing his doubts.

'Let's talk about this later Iz, Bailey's letting me do a hemi-colectomy today.' He got out of bed and walked out.

* * *

The last eight weeks had been hell. That was the only way that he could describe it. Mark had been a whole new level of miserable ever since he had broken up with the woman who, despite the fact that he was 38, was the first woman that he had really loved. Mark had thrown himself into work, particularly now his newly discovered daughter, Sloan, had decided to stay in LA where the family who were going to adopt her baby lived. Over the last eight weeks Mark had made Seattle Grace more money than he had in the last six months and he was sure the chief was pleased, even if everyone else could see that the west coast's top plastic's guy was about to self destruct.

Currently Mark was camped out in his office studying reports sent to him from London about a new technique for reconstructing the limbs of children caught by landmines. No one knew about his discreet enquires to a foreign aid agency who would be only too happy to get him out of Seattle and into a third world country where at least people wouldn't think that face lifts on rich old ladies was all he was good for. Then maybe he could forget the wonderful woman he'd lost because he had learnt how to be a father.

* * *

Three minutes could be a really long time when you were waiting for a result, particularly when you were fairly sure that you already knew the answer and it was the one thing that had the power to completely change your life. As it happened Lexie didn't need to wait nearly that long, the result was so strongly positive, the second pink line came up so quickly and distinctly that there could be no doubt about the answer. She was pregnant.

Sitting in her sister's bathroom Lexie sunk down against the side of the bath and fought the urge to throw up, something she had been doing a lot of recently. For the last six weeks she had been ignoring all the signs, the fatigue, the nausea and the mood swings but with the failure to appear of her second period she had finally bitten the bullet and stolen a test from the hospital.

If the test had been positive two months ago Lexie would have been upset but able to cope. She would have known that the baby's father, a man she was crazy about, would support her and love their child with everything they had and it would have been okay. It might have delayed her surgical career but it wouldn't have spelt the end of the world as she knew it. Now however she was royally screwed. It was like an awful daytime movie. She was pregnant and she had no idea which one of two excellent, if troubled, men was the father.

* * *

**I'll be honest, I've no idea whether I'm going to update this - I'm not so good at updating stories (biggest apologie****s to anyone reading my CSI miami/NY crossover fic, with the current Eric stuff in the new series I just can't get motivated to write it) but I have more plot bunnies jumping around inside my head about this one. **


	2. Chapter 2

**Much thanks to those who reviewed and added me to alerts, it's much appreciated! I should point out I don't watch private practice so I didn't know what that naughty Mark had been up to until seeing the last grey's - this story now has a few spoilers for I like you so much better when you're naked (Finally Alex grew some testacles with Izzie - sadly not in this story yet). And to those of you who were worried about the outcome for Mark and Lexie - please don't, I'm a shipper at heart, I can't guarantee who the father of the baby is (I've just read a really good Bones fic where Booth isn't the father but they still end up together) but you can be fairly sure there will be a happy ending.**

* * *

'Come on, I need to pee.' Christina rapped on the bathroom door again. Her and Meredith had been on the tequila all night so as well as being drunk the diuretic effect of alcohol was starting to make itself known on Christina's system.

'It's open.' Lexie called out, pushing herself up from the floor, forgetting about the test that she had left on the side of the bath. As she slipped out of the bathroom, Christina stumbled in, slamming the door and nearly falling over the bath mat in the process. It was only when she was half heartedly washing her hands that she noticed the small white stick with the two pink lines.

'Christina I need to throw up, open the door.' Meredith giggled at the same time. Derek was having a boy's night with Mark which had become an excuse for Christina and Meredith to have a man free evening. The door flung open and Meredith leant over the toilet, retching. When she sat up she saw what her best friend was holding. 'Again?'

'No. But I think your sister has issues.'

'Lexie?'

'She is your sister.' Christina replied. 'And I didn't think you were that drunk?'

'No. I mean Lexie' Meredith waved her hand in the general direction of the door, her drunkenness preventing her from pointing accurately at Lexie who was stood in the door frame. 'You're gonna have a baby.' She slurred.

'I was really hoping you hadn't seen that.' Lexie took the positive test from Christina's hand.

'I think this calls for more Tequila.' Meredith reached behind the cistern and pulled out another bottle with a little plastic hat for a top. 'Sorry, none for you.' Meredith waved the bottle towards Lexie before failing to open it.

'Give that here.' Christina grabbed the bottle. 'No more Tequila.'

Lexie slunk down onto the floor again. 'What am I going to do?' Lexie looked at Meredith, not knowing Christina's history, it was however Christina who answered.

'You have options. But if you have the baby I'm guessing that you and Sloan, who are mostly very nauseating, will live happily ever after and produce lots more cute offspring.' Lexie took Christina's words in, wishing that she could have some of the contents of the still unopened Tequila bottle. Somehow she knew that Christina's option wasn't for her although the thought had crossed her mind.

'What if the baby isn't Mark's?' Lexie whispered, too ashamed and guilty to look up, the ramifications of that one night starting to truly hit her. Christina didn't know what to say, she was rapidly working through the possible fathers in her head trying to remember who she had seen Lexie with in the last couple of months. The only person she could come up with was McSteamy, even if most of their recent interactions had been of the moping and depressive variety.

'Alex?' Meredith was rapidly sobering up and remembering the morning that she had walked in on her sister and one of her best friends.

'You slept with Karev?' Christina couldn't help exclaiming. 'You little Grey are full of surprises.'

'It was a onetime deal, a big mistake.' Lexie was crying again. 'And I don't know how I tell them.'

'Them?' Christina questioned.

'Mark and Alex, how do I tell them that one of them is going to be a father but I don't know which one?' The three women in the bathroom fell silent at that, no one knowing what to say.

* * *

Derek finally found his friend, face down, asleep on his desk in Seattle grace hospital. From the presence of the blankets and pillows he guessed that Mark had been sleeping here quite a bit. Derek regretted that he had been so wrapped up in issues with the Chief that he hadn't noticed just how low his friend had sunk. As he rounded the desk Derek knocked off the papers on the corner. Bending down to pick them up Derek couldn't help reading them. His friend was thinking about leaving SGH. It was time for an intervention.

'Mark.' Derek shook the exhausted plastic surgeon awake.

'Lexie. It's still dark.' Mark mumbled, still half asleep.

'I'm not Lexie.'

Mark finally sat up and registered his surroundings. 'Sorry. What can I do for you Derek?'

'Gentleman's night. You, me, scotch and cigars. Christina and Meredith are right at this moment consuming unhealthy amounts of Tequila.' Derek placed said items on the desk. 'If you pass me the chair I'll dismantle the smoke detector in here.'

'I'm not really in the mood.' Mark ran his hand through his short blonde hair and over the three day stubble that he couldn't find the energy to shave off.

'We can talk about women or not talk about women, it's up to you. But you my friend have to talk to somebody before you burn out.' Derek finished taking the smoke alarm apart and pushed a glass of scotch over the table to Mark.

'I screwed up. Big time. I slept with Addison'

'I think we've covered my ex-wife before.' Derek lit his cigar.

'When I was in LA with Sloan. I told Lexie. Then she told me she had slept with Karev and I told her I was disgusted and walked off. She would have been ready to forgive me and I walked away. This is why I don't do relationships.'

'The way I see it you have two choices. You can either sit here with me, drink, continue to mope and decide to go halfway around the world. Not that that wouldn't be a noble thing to do, but you need to be doing it for the right reasons.'

'Or?' Mark was looking mildly interested in his dark haired best friend.

'Or, you can be the Mark Sloan I've known for most of my life and go and get what you want.' Derek downed the rest of his drink and watched as Sloan stood up, grabbed his jacket and keys and went to the door. 'Go home Mark, get a shave and a shower and a good night's sleep and start again with Lexie tomorrow.'

* * *

**Once again I won't swear blind I'll update but I'll do my best. (I'm about to start my final year surgical rotation at medical school so life is a little chaotic at the moment - surgeons are fun on TV, not so much in real life!)**


End file.
